Mostly fun campfire ghost stories marred by pseudo-scientific babble and a self-conscious rock-star attitude.
Slipknot singer sees dead people.
Apparently, Taylor (Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good, 2011) has backstage passes to the spirit world that not many of us are privileged enough to get: He not only sees ghosts on a regular basis, but he’s also convinced that the same spooks are haunting him everywhere he goes. His first recollection of seeing ghosts was around the age of 9, when he and some friends went on a Goonies-like adventure to a scary-looking old house in his suburb. In that house, he saw his first sinister apparition, which seemed to be an old man who wanted the young whippersnappers out of his house. From then on, according to Taylor, his life has been one big spook-tacular extravaganza filled with supernatural occurrences. (Later in the book, the author does his tedious best to scientifically prove that these spirits can, in fact, walk the terrestrial plane among us.) Taylor recalls stories about seeing a shadow man in a cornfield trying to attack him; he was once pushed down the stairs by a malevolent, otherworldly force; every time he buys a new Munsters-style mansion, it turns out to be haunted by the spirits of dead children. To Taylor’s credit, all these anecdotes about his close encounters with the spirit world are told in exacting detail, and you certainly want to believe him. Unfortunately, insecurity about how his theories and stories will be received comes to the fore in a big way: Taylor alternates between annoying self-deprecation and smug self-congratulation, spending too much time on humorless, expletive-laden rants against those who would dare question his place among the elite few who have regular interface with supernatural beings.
Mostly fun campfire ghost stories marred by pseudo-scientific babble and a self-conscious rock-star attitude.Pub Date: July 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-306-82164-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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